


Grown Up and Aged Down

by Lauryn426



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29048715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauryn426/pseuds/Lauryn426
Summary: The Pevensie children were different when they came back from the country. Most of the children were of course, but not like them.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

The Pevensie siblings were seen as odd in school; they were so alike and yet so different. They were all known for different traits by students and staff.

It would be unfair to say that Peter Pevensie’s teachers didn’t like him. He was a teenager, and to some, that would be enough to condemn him in their eyes. He was different from his classmates though; more mature. Some teachers liked to gossip about their students, and Peter Pevensie was a favourite discussion topic in the staff room.

His English teacher liked to gossip about his in-depth analysis of poems and novels, and his imagination when it came to writing his own work. She’d often gush over his work, saying that it was what she’d expect from university students, not from a student his age. In equal measure, she’d complain about the one flaw all his teachers had noticed.

Peter’s demeanour and attitude was the one thing that his teachers griped about. It wasn’t that he was disruptive or disrespectful; it was that he just never seemed present in their classes. Sure, he was paying enough attention to the class to be able to answer questions when called on and to contribute to discussions. But his attitude about class was what really bothered the teachers. 

He acted like he was humouring the teachers by showing up, like he had much better and much more important things to be doing. Although he was physically present he was so distant. It didn’t help that he seemed to have perfected the skill of listening to what was being said without actually paying attention. It made him almost unapproachable to the other students - they didn’t want to bother him because surely they were paltry to him.

That was how he seemed to his teachers; his peers had a completely different view of him. He was one of those people who were effortlessly popular, but he was genuine about it. He wouldn’t pretend to be friends with someone because they were also popular, and in fact, made a habit of talking to people who were somewhat outcast. He was sociable with his friends, easygoing and easy to get along with, but had a stubborn streak a mile wide when he thought he was right. He could blather on about historical battles for hours, easily dissecting them and their strategies as his friends listened and jotted frantic notes because they were sure it would be coming up in their next essay.

If his friends had to say that there was a ‘leader’ of their group, it would be a unanimous decision that it was Peter. He was captivating and charismatic, and when he spoke it was like they had to listen. Not because they were forced to, but because he unconsciously had such a compelling presence. That’s not to say that they agreed with everything he said, because they were his friends, not simpering fanatics, but Peter wasn’t the type to get angry over disagreements. If someone’s views contradicted his own, he didn’t try to change them. 

Unless they were hateful in any way: then they would unleash a lecture from hell. It felt worse than your parents telling you that they weren’t mad, just disappointed. And it’s because if his friends did hold any kind of hateful or belittling views, he truly was disappointed in them for their narrow-minded perspectives. He appeared regal when he was ranting, like he was standing up for his people as though he was King of all the land, and just couldn’t comprehend why some thought his citizens weren’t worthy of respect or kindness. He usually had a prominent air of authority but when he was disappointed it exuded from him. It was like he had to hold himself back from declaring a judgement on him, as someone in a position of power would.

Even with his friends, away from sometimes overbearing teachers, it seemed like he still wasn’t fully himself. Like he was holding back an integral part of himself. A part that only his siblings could access.

The only people he really came to life with were his siblings, which was something noticed by students and teachers alike. It was so odd to see him so animated with them because it drew attention to how stunning he was. Not just in his looks, but he was popular with the female students and it was plain as day to see that he would grow up to be handsome. It was like his personality emerged; it was rare to walk past the Pevensie siblings and not see them all animated in a discussion or laughing together. It was even in his physicality as he was often seen to be gesturing or reaching out to gently punch his brother or smooth Lucy’s hair.

Peter wasn’t the only Pevensie sibling that was noticed to be so detached from everything - Edmund was similar. Different, though in the way that he would happily engage if he felt there was an injustice of some sort occurring. Although Edmund was often found with bullied students, teachers soon grew to realise that rather than being the bully, as it seemed Edmund would be becoming, he was growing to a young man with a strong moral code.

Granted, this did get him in some trouble as he often started, and finished, fights with bullies, it was very hard to punish him for objectively doing the right thing. When a teacher would waltz into the staff room complaining about breaking up another fight, some would tsk that he was using the wrong methods. They’d condescendingly say that his heart’s in the right place, but his actions were unacceptable. 

Edmund had had several notes from teachers sent home about it, but how could his mother rightfully punish him when he’d explain that yes, he did get into a fight but that a group were picking on a Jewish student, or pushing a younger girl? From her point of view, he was standing up for people who needed help, and there was nothing wrong with that.

She did wonder that he’d never come home with bruises after these fights, though.

Outside of his fights and short conversations with various bullied students, Edmund was content with sitting by himself with a book in hand. He had friends that he talked to in classes, but he wasn’t particularly close to any of them. Edmund was quiet, and some would assume, shy. He wasn’t; he just preferred his own company, and the company of his siblings over other people.

He reasoned that they’d never be able to understand him, so why try? It was perhaps a childish view to hold, but Edmund was a pre-teen for the second time, so he felt entitled to acting childish every now and then. How could he ever explain that oh yeah, while he was in the country him and his siblings fell through a wardrobe and found a whole new world, which they were royalty in and that they grew up in? 

So the Pevensie brothers had developed a bit of a reputation for themselves; Peter as introspective, charismatic and popular, and Edmund as a fierce defender of those who needed him, but otherwise a bit of a loner.


	2. Chapter 2

The Pevensie brothers had their own reputation as uninvolved but ultimately, good students and classmates. The Pevensie sisters, though, were a completely different ballgame.

Susan was a bright young woman, always the first to raise her hand in class or offer an answer in a discussion. Her teachers loved her, as did her classmates. There were comparisons drawn between her and her brothers, where they found it hard to believe that they were related because their demeanours were just so different.

There were some similarities, though. As with Peter, if there was a ‘leader’ of her friend group, it would undoubtedly be her. She didn’t discriminate in who her friends were and showed equal kindness to all her classmates, and anyone she interacted with. She was the prefect in her year and was set to become the Head Girl when she was old enough. Susan seemed unflappable, and nothing could shock her.

Susan treated everyone equally; she was the diplomatic sibling out of them all. Her friend group was large, and it might be easy to pick out who she wasn’t friends with rather than single out her friends. She was hanging on to old habits when she acted friendly to everyone she came across. She felt disingenuous sometimes because she was used to making friends with those she met for the good of her kingdom, not to truly be friends with them. It helped her to separate how she would act there and how she acted back in England. 

In England, she was friendly, bubbly and extroverted. Someone who was the kind of person who made others want to be friends with them. She was daring enough to be adventurous and innocent enough to be someone who everyone’s parents approved of. Her classmates could easily say that they were going out with Susan and their parents would happily send them out the door with a ‘have a nice time, darling!’ 

There she was one of the highest authorities in the kingdom. She demanded a certain respect and wouldn’t tolerate not receiving it. Susan wasn’t arrogant, just excruciatingly aware of all the proper manners that she should display and that should be demonstrated in kind. It was the kind of thing that the others had never really had to deal with. She was regal and powerful, and she showed it. She was Gentle but didn’t offer mercy when someone didn’t deserve it.

She was characterised by her gentleness with everyone and seemed to have an innate ability to know when someone wasn’t quite feeling themself, or if they were down. The students were told that they could talk to their prefects in their year if they were having difficulties with anything, but a large number of them would skip over their prefects to go to Susan instead.

The teachers had, at first, thought it was so sweet that when she had gone into year eight that she’d looked after the younger year who would, understandably, be struggling with their first year in secondary school. They’d joked that she’d end up with them imprinting on her like ducklings, and they weren’t wrong. By the time the start of the next year rolled around, it was expected that she’d do the same - because that was just who Susan was. It wasn’t expected of her because of some duty or responsibility the school had put on her, but the head of the year was certainly grateful, as it meant less work for her.

It was odd for her to not have to consider how to gain loyalties from so and so and their family, but looking at the students that were so young, it was easy to distance herself from the life she’d once lived. Now she was concerned with whether they liked their teachers, and if any of them were being bullied or struggling with their work, that they weren’t getting lost. 

It was easy to lose herself in the rhythm of caring for others and their needs, but she made sure to spend plenty of time looking after herself too, even if that came in the form of red lipstick and flirting with older (younger) boys over bottles of wine unknowingly borrowed from parents.

As with Peter, Susan was seen at her best when she was with her siblings. She was closer to Lucy than her brothers, but that was to be expected. Susan made sure that Lucy knew that she could rely on Susan for anything - it had been a given there, but Susan wanted her to know it was the same in England and would be the same anywhere.

Lucy was somehow the strangest and most normal of the four. She was intense and wild in everything that she did. She was intensely happy at the best of times, and equally intensely sad. She was grieving something, that much was obvious, but almost no one knew what. If any one of the four siblings were to rebel in the traditional way of staying out too late with friends or going where she knows she’s not allowed, it would be Lucy.

Lucy was hard to describe, and her teachers certainly tried hard. Those that had taught her before nodded knowingly when others would find themselves wordless in the search for the right description of her, as those that hadn’t taught her wanted to know all about the youngest Pevensie. 

It was, perhaps, easier for the teachers to describe her work rather than her personality. They would exclaim that her work was impeccable and that she showed an interest in science, and English, especially when studying poetry. Although her teachers had noticed that she didn’t quite have the same attitude as her brothers, academically, she didn’t have the same attitude as her sister, either. She was somewhere in the middle.

There were times where she was so quiet and still in lessons that it would seem like she wasn’t there at all; just an empty seat where she should be. Equally, there were lessons where she would dominate the discussions and eagerly make notes and seem to drink up the lesson. She’d often be found in the library, reading anatomy books that were seemingly far too advanced for her age, and when questioned about it would look blank and say that she was going to be a doctor, as if it was an obvious thing to know about her.

The teachers wouldn’t have known unless they had been told, but to her friends and family, it was a given. To her siblings it couldn’t be clearer - she had thrived as a healer in Narnia, and they were certain that she would continue to thrive in her chosen career in England. Her parents thought that she was sending herself into an admirable career, and assumed that it must have been hearing about the war at the Professor’s that has triggered her career choice. It was unusual at first; before she’d been to the Professor’s house, she’d never once mentioned being a doctor or anything about going into the medical discipline.

Her friends knew that about her because it was a true passion of hers. Lucy had almost made it a point to befriend the outcasts and the unsure students. She was steady in the way that they needed and was brave enough to stand up to the people who dared to tell her who she should or shouldn’t be friends with. She was a bit like Edmund in that regard, as neither of them would stand for bullying and both sought out those who were unwanted.

Lucy was wild in a way that none of her siblings were. It wasn’t her behaviour or that she was a rebellious child who was hanging out with the wrong crowd or completely off the rails. She was wild in a way that gave her complete freedom and a feeling of peace came from within her because of it. She was wild in the way nature was and embraced nature the same way that she embraced her family and friends.

Susan and Lucy were like their brothers in that they both had some notoriety in the school. Susan was a social butterfly, utterly and completely. She was happy and understanding and empathetic to those in every situation. Lucy was known as being open and loving, if not mercurial at times, but free in a way that no one could ever take from her.


	3. Chapter 3

The Pevensie siblings agreed that Lucy had always been the best of them - the most willing to believe. Edmund, after his disastrous time with the White Witch, had become a staunch believer, but most of the things he believed, he only did because Lucy did. She wasn’t an expert on Narnia but to him, she would always embody the whimsical soul of Narnia. Peter agreed that Lucy was usually always right, as much as it had aggravated him to admit at first.

But it changed when they all grew up in Narnia as Kings and Queens. They had to be a united front and couldn’t afford for things like petty jealousies to get in the way of that. By the time they found the lamppost, Peter had almost forgotten a time where his siblings weren’t his best friends and most trusted advisors. They had friends outside of each other, of course. It was just different with the four of them.

When they tumbled back through the wardrobe it was like waking up from a dream, and Peter wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was the first to turn back and try to go back to Narnia. It had become home and felt so real that surely it had to be the Professor’s house and London that was all a dream.

He was wrong. There were two worlds, and Peter couldn’t help feeling like a failure. The others couldn’t either. How were they supposed to move on? Be children again?

They’d all seen too much of the world to truly be who they were before they’d entered Narnia. It just seemed that they’d seen too much of the wrong world. They were just kids again and thrown back into a war where they were just another set of siblings sent away from the blitz. They couldn’t do anything to help. 

Peter couldn’t help draw up battle plans and strategies as he’d grown so used to. He couldn’t even spar anymore - what use was a sword and shield against guns and bombs? Susan was the diplomat of the four but she knew even suggesting she take a position would be laughed off by the adults who would see nothing but her apparent age and her gender. Edmund didn’t have his spy network to fall back on and Lucy certainly couldn’t get to the battlefield as a nurse.

It was unsettling, the first few days back in England; the siblings were all on edge, waiting for someone to walk up to them and talk to them about Narnia and its daily runnings. They’d grown up managing a kingdom and now they weren’t even allowed to make basic choices.

It was more unsettling to return to London that they thought it would be. It was so crowded and loud and the smog was awful. It was unnerving to see the destruction of the Blitz, and it reminded them of battles fought long ago in Narnia and they’d traded knowing looks. 

The Pevensie siblings were restless - they always were in spring. It was noticeable, not because it was a big difference, but because they were slight enough to change them almost completely. 

It changed Peter in the way that his back straightened, and his posture became impeccable, almost military-like. He became more of a leader than usual, and that always amazed his classmates and teachers. They almost forgot that when he spoke, he was their age and not their teacher. Even in small things, like when they’d split into teams for their PE class, he spoke with an authority that no teenager should have. He spoke like he expected to be listened to, and with the tone, he took it was very difficult to not obey.

He even walked differently - he was usually the picture of efficiency, but in the spring he walked regally, almost inspecting his kingdom. Of course, his kingdom was the school grounds, so not really his but he commanded respect from the very earth. His teachers, who hadn’t known him before Narnia, had always commented that he was a very confident young man. Some even remarked that he was perhaps too confident, but considering his perfect grades and exemplary performances as prefect, others thought it was warranted.

In the spring the Pevensie siblings liked to walk amongst the trees to try to see if there was any wildness there. When the sun illuminated them it was like looking into the future - they held a deep-seated certainty in themselves, and in each other. It was sure that they would get far in life because they had the determination to get where they wanted to be. 

The teachers liked to gossip in the staff room about them. They did about all the students, really, but the Pevensies were an anomaly. With the four being at the same school, the teachers all thought it was a guarantee that at least one of them would be rebellious, or act out. A few teachers had heard tales of Edmund’s behaviour and were sure it was going to be him. They were shocked when he’d followed the example set by his older siblings and was polite to his teachers and classmates, never missed a class or a homework deadline, and even had good grades in all his classes.

That was the problem with the Pevensies - they were perfect in almost every way. Perfect grades, perfect conduct and even a perfect relationship between them. Except there was just one thing that every teacher had noticed. It seemed like none of them were really present in classes. Like they were attending to do the teacher a favour and that, really, they had better things to be doing.

It was like they were humouring the teachers, and almost any authority they ran across. Some teachers speculated that they must have been spoiled when they were children, or that they ran their mother roughshod. It was obvious that they were used to being in control, for all that they didn’t broadcast it, or try to actually take control of situations. Not in a way that wasn’t in an official capacity - they had when they’d been sorting out arguments and fights as prefects, but apart from that they were just detached from the rest of the school.

They depended on another in a way that was so unusual to the rest of the school. A few of Peter and Susan’s classmates had younger siblings, and they would rather die than hang around them like Peter and Susan did. The Pevensies were a dependable group of siblings.

It was admirable, the lengths that they’d go to for each other, and the way that they always support one another. They were the golden standard of their school - the ones who teacher’s held up their work as an example to the rest of the class. Altogether they’d gathered almost every award the school had for academic excellence, or for fostering peace within the student population.

The youngest of the siblings, Lucy, seemed to be the favourite of them. She was doted on by Peter who had fully adopted the father and big brother role in her life, and Susan always made sure that she’d eaten and drank enough and that she wore her big coat in the winter.

But it was spring, and like the rest of the Pevensies, Lucy was different in spring. She’d walk through the woods or whatever greenery she could find, and knock politely on tree stumps (“to wake them up, it’s spring,” is what she’d say, smiling, if anyone asked) and hum with the bird song as though she understood it. Winter was a sad time for Lucy, that was obvious to anyone who looked. She retreated into herself but by spring she’d blossom along with the flowers and trees. 

Her siblings understood what she was going through, and she was grateful for it. She got weird looks, sometimes from her classmates who noticed that she was not her bright, bubbly self in the winter. She would assure them that she was fine, just winter blues and they would laugh it off. Her siblings knew it wasn’t just winter blues and knew she was thinking of their first Christmas in Narnia. Knew she was trying to remember the right shade of red that Mr Tumnus’ scarf was and whether the Beavers preferred fresh fish or dried fish.

It was a struggle to remember Narnia fully because it had never felt fully real - it felt too fantastical like it should be in a book instead of their memories.

Though the Pevensies got used to being back in England, they hadn’t fully adjusted by the time they were thrust back into Narnia.


End file.
